Tag: Twitter

Summary for November 2018

NET News

1. I supported the annual NET Cancer Day event in my own style, contributing SIGNIFICANTLY to both Facebook and Twitter social media platforms. My twitter accounts were the biggest contributors to the #LETsTalkAboutNETs and #NeuroendocrineCancer hashtags for several days straddling the 10th Nov and between this and my Facebook account, I accounted for a significant proportion of the data recently published by INCA. I almost got to my 1 million ‘reach’ on twitter in ONE WEEK straddling NET Cancer Day (see below) – just a wee Scottish guy with a less common disease and a computer. Curiously not mentioned by INCA in their recent newsletter. So I thought I’d mention it instead.

Mind you, every day is NET Cancer Day on my social media platforms. I push on.

2. Thanks for supporting my photo on Facebook and Twitter – it has become the most liked post on my Facebook ever with over 1000 likes. You can link directly to it by clicking here:

3. Personal NET News

My NET. I still await the output from a meeting with my Oncologist and Surgeon to address the new issues identified my routine surveillance scan and a subsequent Ga68 PET/CT. Fortunately the issues are not classed as urgent at this stage. They have dismissed PRRT as an option at this stage (kept in reserve) and it looks like surgery might be on the cards. You can read about my Ga68 PET/CT experience here and my fibrosis issues here. I recently has a Renal MAG3 nuclear scan to determine the efficacy of my kidney function – waiting on results but expecting good news.

Looking for Advice?

If you are reading this and you are currently undiagnosed but strongly suspect NETs – this article might help.

If you are diagnosed and looking for a NET Specialist and the sort of questions to ask – this article will help.

Blog Site Activity in November

Due to the vagaries of Facebook inner workings, some of these articles created or updated in the last month may not have even shown on your timeline. So, ICYMI …….here’s a summary with links, includes updated blogs. You can actually sign up to receive my blog articles direct to your inbox when published – subscribe here.

For most of November, my name branded facebook page was the fastest rising public Facebook page on the planet about NETs. I use this page to like and comment on other healthcare pages (it draws in interest in NETs). Some of you will also recognise it as the main ID inside my closed group. It’s also a backup to this page (NETCancerBlog) as you will not always see stuff on my main page due to Facebook gremlins.

There were many distractions in November 2018, I’m actually quite busy with external projects but still managed over 35,000 views, the second biggest monthly figure. Here are the top 10 most read articles which contributed to last month’s figures:

I continue to receive a steady flow of private contacts, mainly from patients seeking information. I don’t have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer

Please also note that due to sheer numbers of requests, I cannot accept telephone or video calls on a one to one basis. Please just message me and I will respond – see “Send Message” button when you CLICK HERE. (also please ‘Like’ this page if you have not already done so). On a personal note, please do not send me friend requests on my personal Facebook page, I get so many and want to keep this little area of ‘sanity’ free of NET stuff. I have so many other sites you can contact me on – all inside the newsletter. The number of non-patients contacting me for other reasons (mainly to help with something) continues to grow and this is producing some great publicity and awareness.

Ronny Allan’s Private Facebook Group

As the number of people contacting me has increased so much, it’s becoming very difficult to answer all questions myself. I’ve therefore set up a chat room here (I’m not the only one who can answer questions!). This is not like many forums, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss without many of the other distractions that can be found on forums and is moderated accordingly. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people. It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat was held on 28 Feb about the problems NET patients can have with being unable to produce sufficient digestive enzymes and the treatment to correct this issue PERT (Creon etc).

The second chat will be about “Weight” and you can join the event by selecting ‘Going’ to this event (you will be kept up to date inside this event).Join the chat group by clicking here (please answer the simple questions so you can be processed quicker). As at 30th November, there were almost 2200 people in the group. It’s the fastest growing group in the world for NETs.

And I’m working on a guest Gastroenterologist for a third chat. To be confirmed.

New Audiences for NET Cancer

I said it was my aim to find new audiences for NETs rather than just share stuff within our own community. Sharing memes and animal pictures between patients is not my scene – I want to extend awareness much wider than that and with much wider and compelling messages, particularly to the outside world. Doing that is a way to ensure we move away from being a niche condition that no-one has heard of. I’m doing this all the time, although it may not always be apparent.

Engagements and Invites

I just received an invite to help build an educational tool for NETs. More to follow when I am at liberty to tell you.

I’m working on a video shoot next week for a Pharma company who are looking at how cancer patients live from day to day. More info later when I am at liberty to tell you.

I’m working on an association with a Pharma company to help with patient portals. Early days.

I’m working on an association with a healthcare company to help with their marketing.

I’ve accepted an appointment to the Strategic Advisory Board on MultiMed Inc the owner of Cancer Knowledge Network based in Canada who have featured my articles in the past (https://cancerkn.com/) – They also publishes a magazine called Current Oncology which is Medline listed. This is not a NET site but my inclusion will no doubt raise the profile for us. Read more here.

Cure Magazine. I’ve been accepted as a ‘Cure Today’ contributor which means my articles will get a wider distribution than they do now. Cure Magazine has a readership of 1 million. Click here to read more. In October, I was featured in Cure Magazine twice.

“Cancer isn’t all about me”“Poker Face or Cancer Card”

Twitter. I’m ‘extremely’ active on twitter and I find a lot of research stuff there, in addition to new audiences. I also use it to support other conditions and it’s mostly returned (i.e. others help with NET awareness and are made aware of NETs in the process). There are people regularly retweeting my stuff who do not have a personal interest in NETs and I am now regularly copied in on many tweets by those wishing to use my account as a vehicle for dissemination. In the last month, I tweeted 244 times on my personal account which led to over 117,000 views of my tweets. I was mentioned 203 times by other tweeters, 2331 people looked at my profile (where it mentions NETs) and I gained 64 new followers. My weekly ‘reach’ is consistently between 400,000 and 800,000, heading for 1 million soon. My tweet “Ignore this post” remains the most tweeted article about NETs ever posted on twitter. Check it out – click here.

WANT TO JOIN MY TWITTER ARMY? Just ask.

Daily Newsletter from my twitter feed (Nuzzel). There is so much on twitter that I could swamp the community Facebook site so I started a twitter newsletter via an app called Nuzzel which seeks out stuff I normally like. This has been a huge success from my point of view resulting in an increase in blog hits and to a wider population than just NETs. Click this link and sign up if you think this is something you’d be interested in receiving – you don’t need to have a twitter account to read, just sign up with an email to join over 630 other subscribers.

WEGO. I continue to be featured by ‘external’ organisations such as WEGO and my PODCAST is reaching new audiences – click here. In March, I managed to get into a very well contested short list for an article about the use of Facebook for health communities in light of the recent bad press for the service. The recent awards will continue to showcase my work which has the effect of spreading Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to NEW audiences in addition to enriching my experience as a Patient Leader. WEGO is a fantastic organisation! They recently listed me as one of the top 5 bloggers to watch in 2018. This is great awareness and good feedback for my own efforts. Read more here. I have made the finals in the last 3 years and I was their winner in the 2016 Best in Show: Community and 2018 Best in Show: Blog announced on 26 Sep 2018. Check out my WEGO Health profile here.

Click the picture to watch the video of the live announcements

Social Media and Stats

Blog Milestone. At the end of last month, I accelerated past 777,000 blog views! Thank you all so much ♥ Keep sharing! On track for one million in the latter half of 2019.

Facebook Milestone. Almost 7200 ‘Likes’ by the end of the end of last month but my projected numbers are down so far in 2018 (despite a 20% increase in blog hits). The Facebook page is now my biggest outlet for awareness and education so please recommend this page to anyone you think would be interested. There are buttons to share the page and invite others to ‘Like’ it.

Also check out my sister Facebook sites here (go to these pages and click on ‘Like’)

These are fallback sites to counter the Facebook algorithm whereby you may not see all my posts on the main site (click on the links to see the pages)

Instagram

I’m expanding into Instagram to see how that goes. I’ve amassed over 300 followers to date. Initially, I’ll just be posting pictures of things that inspire me, mostly scenic photos of places I’ve been or want to go! I really enjoy these pictures, I hope you do too. You can follow me here: Click here to go to my Instagram page

Community Statistics (the measurement of my efforts on your behalf)

Figures

Facebook: 7196. This is a key outlet for my blog – pleaseencourage others to like my page (if you’d like to know how to use your Facebook to invite others to my page – let me know, I can provide you with a step by step approach).

Most blog views in one day: 4453 on 16 August 2018. Why the spike? ….. “Aretha Franklin”

Most blog views in one week: 14,830 in August 2018. Why the spike? ….. mainly “Aretha Franklin”

Most blog views in one month: 38,275 in August 2018. Why the spike? …..“Aretha Franklin”

Summary

An amazing amount of awareness and hopefully, support for others. However, I cannot do this without you guys liking, commenting and sharing! The likes give me motivation, the comments and private messages give me inspiration or at least a chance to explain further – and they also keep me humble. The sharing gives me a bigger platform. A bigger platform generates more awareness.

Summary for October 2018

NET News

Several headlines covering the past month:

1. The annual NANETS symposium took place last month and I constructed an article of several important outputs. One day I might make it there, been to ENETS twice. Would love to attend UKINETS but they don’t seem very ‘patient’ friendly.

2. I spoke alongside IPSEN Pharma SAS (Global HQ) at the annual Eye for Pharma Patient Summit. It was an honour and a privilege to stand in front of 200 people to tell my personal story plus my involvement in LivingWithNETs.com. The audience was a mix of the Pharmaceutical industry, Healthcare industry and Patient Advocates from many different illnesses. A fantastic and real awareness opportunity which is part of my promise to take NET awareness to new audiences rather than just share stuff between NET patients and advocates.

the best kind of story – a 2 legged one

3. I’m still reeling from winning the 2018 WEGO Blog Award and if you missed the live announcement, you can listen to the quite short video clip here.

Personal NET News

My NET. I still await the output from a meeting with my Oncologist and Surgeon to address the new issues identified my routine surveillance scan and a subsequent Ga68 PET/CT. Fortunately the issues are not classed as urgent at this stage. They have dismissed PRRT as an option at this stage (kept in reserve) and it looks like surgery might be on the cards. You can read about my Ga68 PET/CT experience here and my fibrosis issues here.

Looking for Advice?

If you are reading this and you are currently undiagnosed but strongly suspect NETs – this article might help.

If you are diagnosed and looking for a NET Specialist and the sort of questions to ask – this article will help.

Blog Site Activity in September

Due to the vagaries of Facebook inner workings, some of these articles created or updated in the last month may not have even shown on your timeline. So, ICYMI …….here’s a summary with links, includes updated blogs. You can actually sign up to receive my blog articles direct to your inbox when published – subscribe here.

There were many distractions in October 2018, I was very busy with Ipsen speaker stuff plus a holiday in Scotland but still managed over 32,000 views, the third biggest monthly figure. Here are the top 10 most read articles which contributed to last month’s figures:

I continue to receive a steady flow of private contacts, mainly from patients seeking information. I don’t have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer

Please also note that due to sheer numbers of requests, I cannot accept telephone or video calls on a one to one basis. Please just message me and I will respond – see “Send Message” button when you CLICK HERE. (also please ‘Like’ this page if you have not already done so). On a personal note, please do not send me friend requests on my personal Facebook page, I get so many and want to keep this little area of ‘sanity’ free of NET stuff. I have so many other sites you can contact me on – all inside the newsletter. The number of non-patients contacting me for other reasons (mainly to help with something) continues to grow and this is producing some great publicity and awareness.

Ronny Allan’s Private Facebook Group

As the number of people contacting me has increased so much, it’s becoming very difficult to answer all questions myself. I’ve therefore set up a chat room here (I’m not the only one who can answer questions!). This is not like many forums, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss without many of the other distractions that can be found on forums and is moderated accordingly. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people. It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat was held on 28 Feb about the problems NET patients can have with being unable to produce sufficient digestive enzymes and the treatment to correct this issue PERT (Creon etc). The second chat will be about “Weight” and you can join the event by selecting ‘Going’ to this event (you will be kept up to date inside this event).Join the chat group by clicking here (please answer the simple questions so you can be processed quicker). As at 31st October 2018, there were almost 2000 people in the group.

New Audiences for NET Cancer

I said it was my aim to find new audiences for NETs rather than just share stuff within our own community. Sharing memes and animal pictures between patients is not my scene – I want to extend awareness much wider than that and with much wider and compelling messages, particularly to the outside world. Doing that is a way to ensure we move away from being a niche condition that no-one has heard of. I’m doing this all the time, although it may not always be apparent.

Engagements and Invites

I spoke at the Eye for Pharma event in London alongside an important Pharma NET contact. See above.

I just received an invite to help build an educational tool for NETs. More to follow when I am at liberty to tell you.

I’ve accepted an appointment to the Strategic Advisory Board on MultiMed Inc the owner of Cancer Knowledge Network based in Canada who have featured my articles in the past (https://cancerkn.com/) – They also publishes a magazine called Current Oncology which is Medline listed. This is not a NET site but my inclusion will no doubt raise the profile for us. Read more here.

Cure Magazine. I’ve been accepted as a ‘Cure Today’ contributor which means my articles will get a wider distribution than they do now. Cure Magazine has a readership of 1 million. Click here to read more. In October, I was featured in Cure Magazine twice.

“Cancer isn’t all about me”“Poker Face or Cancer Card”

Twitter. I’m ‘extremely’ active on twitter and I find a lot of research stuff there, in addition to new audiences. I also use it to support other conditions and it’s mostly returned (i.e. others help with NET awareness and are made aware of NETs in the process). There are people regularly retweeting my stuff who do not have a personal interest in NETs and I am now regularly copied in on many tweets by those wishing to use my account as a vehicle for dissemination. In the last month, I tweeted 190 times on my personal account which led to over 117,000 views of my tweets. I was mentioned 134 times by other tweeters, 1524 people looked at my profile (where it mentions NETs) and I gained 50 new followers. My tweet “Ignore this post” remains the most tweeted article about NETs ever posted on twitter. Check it out – click here.

WANT TO JOIN MY TWITTER ARMY? Just ask.

Daily Newsletter from my twitter feed (Nuzzel). There is so much on twitter that I could swamp the community Facebook site so I started a twitter newsletter via an app called Nuzzel which seeks out stuff I normally like. This has been a huge success from my point of view resulting in an increase in blog hits and to a wider population than just NETs. Click this link and sign up if you think this is something you’d be interested in receiving – you don’t need to have a twitter account to read, just sign up with an email to join over 630 other subscribers.

WEGO. I continue to be featured by ‘external’ organisations such as WEGO and my PODCAST is reaching new audiences – click here. In March, I managed to get into a very well contested short list for an article about the use of Facebook for health communities in light of the recent bad press for the service. The recent awards will continue to showcase my work which has the effect of spreading Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to NEW audiences in addition to enriching my experience as a Patient Leader. WEGO is a fantastic organisation! They recently listed me as one of the top 5 bloggers to watch in 2018. This is great awareness and good feedback for my own efforts. Read more here. I have made the finals in the last 3 years and I was their winner in the 2016 Best in Show: Community and 2018 Best in Show: Blog announced on 26 Sep 2018. Check out my WEGO Health profile here.

Click the picture to watch the video of the live announcements

Social Media and Stats

Blog Milestone. At the end of last month, I accelerated past 741,000 blog views! Thank you all so much ♥ Keep sharing! On track for one million in the latter half of 2019.

Facebook Milestone. Almost 7000 ‘Likes’ by the end of the end of last month but my projected numbers are down so far in 2018 (despite a 20% increase in blog hits). The Facebook page is now my biggest outlet for awareness and education so please recommend this page to anyone you think would be interested. There are buttons to share the page and invite others to ‘Like’ it.

Also check out my sister Facebook sites here (go to these pages and click on ‘Like’)

These are fallback sites to counter the Facebook algorithm whereby you may not see all my posts on the main site (click on the links to see the pages)

Instagram

I’m expanding into Instagram to see how that goes. I’ve amassed over 300 followers to date. Initially, I’ll just be posting pictures of things that inspire me, mostly scenic photos of places I’ve been or want to go! I really enjoy these pictures, I hope you do too. You can follow me here: Click here to go to my Instagram page

Community Statistics (the measurement of my efforts on your behalf)

Figures

Facebook: 6981. This is a key outlet for my blog – pleaseencourage others to like my page (if you’d like to know how to use your Facebook to invite others to my page – let me know, I can provide you with a step by step approach).

Most blog views in one day: 4453 on 16 August 2018. Why the spike? ….. “Aretha Franklin”

Most blog views in one week: 14,830 in August 2018. Why the spike? ….. mainly “Aretha Franklin”

Most blog views in one month: 38,275 in August 2018. Why the spike? …..“Aretha Franklin”

Summary

An amazing amount of awareness and hopefully, support for others. However, I cannot do this without you guys liking, commenting and sharing! The likes give me motivation, the comments and private messages give me inspiration or at least a chance to explain further – and they also keep me humble. The sharing gives me a bigger platform. A bigger platform generates more awareness.

Summary for September 2018

NET News

1. The annual NANETS symposium kicks off in a few days. I’m hoping to bring you news from the event (remotely, I won’t be there) and perhaps a summary in next month’s newsletter.

2. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has a proposal on their desk to harmonise the grading structure for all types of Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NEN). I’ve actually been ahead of the game for over a year since I found out this was coming and it’s reflected in my 18 month old post on Staging and Grading. Be careful where you look as many are still behind the curve on this issue. Their proposals are interesting as they are recommending the final removal of the last vestiges of the word ‘Carcinoid‘, something I’ve been pushing for in the community for some time. I’ll be constructing a new article confirming some of the detail in due course. Watch this space.

3. This very old news from 2007 has resurfaced – an autopsy on former US President Eisenhower confirmed he had a Pheochromocytoma after suffering from heart issues for some time prior to his death. Nonetheless, good publicity for Neuroendocrine Cancer. Read my Pheochromocytoma article here.

Personal NET News

My NET. I still await the output from a meeting with my Oncologist and Surgeon to address the new issues identified my routine surveillance scan and a subsequent Ga68 PET/CT. Fortunately the issues are not classed as urgent at this stage. I think they are still consulting with London on the feasibility of trying PRRT first. You can read about my Ga68 PET/CT experience here and my fibrosis issues here.

Looking for Advice?

If you are reading this and you are currently undiagnosed but strongly suspect NETs – this article might help.

If you are diagnosed and looking for a NET Specialist – this article will help and it also includes 10 questions to ask.

Blog Site Activity in September

Due to the vagaries of Facebook inner workings, some of these articles created or updated in the last month may not have even shown on your timeline. So, ICYMI …….here’s a summary with links, includes updated blogs. You can actually sign up to receive my blog articles direct to your inbox when published – subscribe here.

Don’t worry, it’s benign! An article about the dangers in assuming that all NETs are benign. All NETs have malignant potential.

Your favourite posts. The numbers are so big so the list is now too long – revised list now for anything above 5000 hits. I now have two articles with over 20,000 views.

Let’s raise our “sites” – twist on the word sights to indicate we need to keep on letting people know that a NET in a particular part of the anatomy should not be called that anatomical cancer. The change in graphic seems to have made this more popular.

There have been many distractions in September 2018, I was very busy with WEGO Health stuff but still managed 25,000 views. Here are the top 10 most read articles which contributed to last month’s figures:

I continue to receive a steady flow of private contacts, mainly from patients seeking information. I don’t have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer

Please also note that due to sheer numbers of requests, I cannot accept telephone or video calls on a one to one basis. Please just message me and I will respond – see “Send Message” button when you CLICK HERE. (also please ‘Like’ this page if you have not already done so). On a personal note, please do not send me friend requests on my personal Facebook page, I get so many and want to keep this little area of ‘sanity’ free of NET stuff. I have so many other sites you can contact me on – all inside the newsletter. The number of non-patients contacting me for other reasons (mainly to help with something) continues to grow and this is producing some great publicity and awareness.

Ronny Allan’s Private Facebook Group

As the number of people contacting me has increased so much, it’s becoming very difficult to answer all questions myself. I’ve therefore set up a chat room here (I’m not the only one who can answer questions!). This is not like many forums, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss without many of the other distractions that can be found on forums and is moderated accordingly. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people. It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat was held on 28 Feb about the problems NET patients can have with being unable to produce sufficient digestive enzymes and the treatment to correct this issue PERT (Creon etc). The second chat will be about “Weight” and you can join the event by selecting ‘Going’ to this event (you will be kept up to date inside this event).Join the chat group by clicking here (please answer the simple questions so you can be processed quicker). As at 1st October 2018, there were almost 1900 people in the group. I might cap at 2000 to maintain the integrity of the site.

New Audiences for NET Cancer

I said it was my aim to find new audiences for NETs rather than just share stuff within our own community. Sharing memes and animal pictures between patients is not my scene – I want to extend awareness much wider than that to ensure we move away from being a niche condition that no-one has heard of. I’m doing this all the time, although it may not always be apparent.

Engagements and Invites

I’m working on an invite to attend a pharma event in October at the guest of a major pharma company. I will update you when I’m allowed to release details but I can tell you now I will be speaking at the Eye for Pharma event in London alongside an important Pharma NET contact.

I just received an invite to help build an educational tool for NETs. More to follow when I am at liberty to tell you.

In July, I continued a dialogue in a patient app development coordinated by NET Patient Foundation. That said, I missed the meeting due to illness. I’m on the project team and happy to help if I can. I always react positively to requests for help from INCA’s national NET affiliates, providing I have the bandwidth available to support and it meets with my association criteria.

I’ve accepted an appointment to the Strategic Advisory Board on MultiMed Inc the owner of Cancer Knowledge Network based in Canada who have featured my articles in the past (https://cancerkn.com/) – They also publishes a magazine called Current Oncology which is Medline listed. This is not a NET site but my inclusion will no doubt raise the profile for us. Read more here.

Cure Magazine. I’ve been accepted as a ‘Cure Today’ contributor which means my articles will get a wider distribution than they do now. Cure Magazine has a readership of 1 million. Click here to read more. In October, I was featured in Cure Magazine twice. I have been so busy in 2017 but I have plans to increase my presence there in 2018:

“Cancer isn’t all about me”“Poker Face or Cancer Card”

Twitter. I’m ‘extremely’ active on twitter and I find a lot of research stuff there, in addition to new audiences. I also use it to support other conditions and it’s mostly returned (i.e. others help with NET awareness and are made aware of NETs in the process). There are people regularly retweeting my stuff who do not have a personal interest in NETs and I am now regularly copied in on many tweets by those wishing to use my account as a vehicle for dissemination. In the last month, I tweeted 220 times on my personal account which led to over 140,000 views of my tweets. I was mentioned 145 times by other tweeters, 1648 people looked at my profile and I gained 74 new followers. My tweet “Ignore this post” remains the most tweeted article about NETs ever posted on twitter. Check it out – click here.

Daily Newsletter from my twitter feed (Nuzzel). There is so much on twitter that I could swamp the community Facebook site so I started a twitter newsletter via an app called Nuzzel which seeks out stuff I normally like. This has been a huge success from my point of view resulting in an increase in blog hits and to a wider population than just NETs. Click this link and sign up if you think this is something you’d be interested in receiving – you don’t need to have a twitter account to read, just sign up with an email to join over 600 other subscribers.

WEGO. I continue to be featured by ‘external’ organisations such as WEGO and my PODCAST is reaching new audiences – click here. In March, I managed to get into a very well contested short list for an article about the use of Facebook for health communities in light of the recent bad press for the service. The recent awards will continue to showcase my work which has the effect of spreading Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to NEW audiences in addition to enriching my experience as a Patient Leader. WEGO is a fantastic organisation! They recently listed me as one of the top 5 bloggers to watch in 2018. This is great awareness and good feedback for my own efforts. Read more here. I have made the finals in the last 3 years and I was their winner in the 2018 Best in Show: Blog announced on 26 Sep 2018. Check out my WEGO Health profile here.

Click the picture to watch the video of the live announcements

Social Media and Stats

Blog Milestone. At the end of last month, I accelerated past 709,000 blog views! Thank you all so much ♥ Keep sharing! On track for one million in the latter half of 2019.

Facebook Milestone. Almost 6800 ‘Likes’ by the end of the end of last month but my projected numbers are down so far in 2018 (despite a 20% increase in blog hits). The Facebook page is now my biggest outlet for awareness and education so please recommend this page to anyone you think would be interested. There are buttons to share the page and invite others to ‘Like’ it.

Also check out my sister Facebook sites here (go to these pages and click on ‘Like’)

These are fallback sites to counter the Facebook algorithm whereby you may not see all my posts on the main site (click on the links to see the pages)

Instagram

I’m expanding into Instagram to see how that goes. I’ve amassed over 300 followers to date. Initially, I’ll just be posting pictures of things that inspire me, mostly scenic photos of places I’ve been or want to go! I really enjoy these pictures, I hope you do too. You can follow me here: Click here to go to my Instagram page

Community Statistics (the measurement of my efforts on your behalf)

Figures

Facebook: 6797. This is a key outlet for my blog – pleaseencourage others to like my page (if you’d like to know how to use your Facebook to invite others to my page – let me know, I can provide you with a step by step approach).

Summary

An amazing amount of awareness and hopefully, support for others. However, I cannot do this without you guys liking, commenting and sharing! The likes give me motivation, the comments and private messages give me inspiration or at least a chance to explain further – and they also keep me humble. The sharing gives me a bigger platform. A bigger platform generates more awareness.

Summary for August 2018

NET News

Several headlines covering the past month:

1. The death of Aretha Franklin was a shock to her many fans around the world, including myself. I had no idea she was a Neuroendocrine Cancer patient. However, it would appear her death is being assigned as ‘Pancreatic Cancer’ mainly due to a rather clumsy statement from her physician. Despite the fact that her death certificate specifically confirms Neuroendocrine Cancer, we will be fighting a hard battle for years to come. The same thing happened with Steve Jobs, although I suspect we have now won that battle despite frequently news articles saying Pancreatic Cancer. Read about Aretha Franklin here and check out the link to her death certificate – I believe this is the most concrete evidence of her type of cancer. Click here for Aretha.

2. PRRT in UK took a step forward when NICE finally approved the drug (Lu-177) for use in England and there is mention of some direction for Wales in the document (I’m trying to find out what it means for Wales). Scotland had already been approved last month and I assume Northern Ireland will continue to access elsewhere in UK via an NHS inter-region funds transfer until facilities are in place. You can read the NICE approval document which also has a very interesting ‘Implementation’ section. Click here to read.

3, The World Health Organisation (WHO) has a proposal on their desk to harmonise the grading structure for all types of Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NEN). I’ve actually been ahead of the game for over a year since I found out this was coming and it’s reflected in my 18 month old post on Staging and Grading. However, their proposals are interesting as they are recommending the final removal of the last vestiges of the word ‘Carcinoid‘, something I’ve been pushing for in the community for some time. I’ll be constructing a new article confirming some of the detail in due course.

Personal News

My NET. I await the output from a meeting with my Oncologist and Surgeon to address the new issues identified my routine surveillance scan and a subsequent Ga68 PET/CT. The holiday season will soon be over, fortunately the issues are not classed as urgent at this stage. You can read about my Ga68 PET/CT experience here and my fibrosis issues here.

WEGO Health Awards. I also await the results of the WEGO Health Award Finals. Many thanks for all your votes which I noticed were over 1000 by the time the voting ended. The finalists will be announced on 4th September. Check out my WEGO Health profile here.

Blog Site Activity in August

Due to the vagaries of Facebook inner workings, some of these articles created or updated in August 2018 may not have even shown on your timeline. So, ICYMI …….here’s a summary with links, includes updated blogs. You can actually sign up to receive my blog articles direct to your inbox when published – subscribe here.

There have been many distractions in August 2018 but following the Aretha headline, I broke all records for hightest numbers of viewing in one day, in one week and in one month. I almost made 40,000 views. Here are the top 10 most read articles which contributed to August’s figures:

I continue to receive a steady flow of private contacts, mainly from patients seeking information. I don’t have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer

Please also note that due to sheer numbers of requests, I cannot accept telephone or video calls on a one to one basis. Please just message me and I will respond – see “Send Message” button when you CLICK HERE. (also please ‘Like’ this page if you have not already done so). On a personal note, please do not send me friend requests on my personal Facebook page, I get so many and want to keep this little area of ‘sanity’ free of NET stuff. I have so many other sites you can contact me on – all inside the newsletter. The number of non-patients contacting me for other reasons (mainly to help with something) continues to grow and this is producing some great publicity and awareness.

Ronny Allan’s Group

As the number of people contacting me has increased so much, it’s becoming very difficult to answer all questions myself. I’ve therefore set up a chat room here (I’m not the only one who can answer questions!). This is not like many forums, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss without many of the other distractions that can be found on forums and is moderated accordingly. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people. It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat was held on 28 Feb about the problems NET patients can have with being unable to produce sufficient digestive enzymes and the treatment to correct this issue PERT (Creon etc).

Join the chat group by clicking here (please answer the simple questions so you can be processed quicker). As at 31st August 2018, there were almost 1650 people in the group. I might cap at 2000 to maintain the integrity of the site.

New Audiences for NET Cancer

I said it was my aim to find new audiences for NETs rather than just share stuff within our own community. Sharing memes and animal pictures between patients is not my scene – I want to extend awareness much wider than that to ensure we move away from being a niche condition that no-one has heard of. I’m doing this all the time, although it may not always be apparent.

Engagements and Invites

I’m working on an invite to attend a pharma event in October at the guest of a major pharma company. I will update you when I’m allowed to release details but I can tell you now I will be speaking at the Eye for Pharma event in London alongside an important Pharma NET contact.

In July, I continued a dialogue in a patient app development coordinated by NET Patient Foundation. That said, I missed the meeting due to illness. I’m on the project team and happy to help if I can. I always react positively to requests for help from INCA’s national NET affiliates, providing I have the bandwidth available to support.

I’ve accepted an appointment to the Strategic Advisory Board on MultiMed Inc the owner of Cancer Knowledge Network based in Canada who have featured my articles in the past (https://cancerkn.com/) – They also publishes a magazine called Current Oncology which is Medline listed. This is not a NET site but my inclusion will no doubt raise the profile for us. Read more here.

Some of you will remember the invite to Berlin for a ‘Patients included’ event, This was not a NET Cancer event but I was invited due to my wider healthcare advocate work. That was a tough gig but great experience. There’s a summary file here and I have been invited back next year and my involvement is still being worked out.

Article features

Cure Magazine. I’ve been accepted as a ‘Cure Today’ contributor which means my articles will get a wider distribution than they do now. Cure Magazine has a readership of 1 million. Click here to read more. In October, I was featured in Cure Magazine twice. I have been so busy in 2017 but I have plans to increase my presence there in 2018:

“Cancer isn’t all about me”“Poker Face or Cancer Card”

Twitter. I’m ‘extremely’ active on twitter and I find a lot of research stuff there, in addition to new audiences. I also use it to support other conditions and it’s mostly returned (i.e. others help with NET awareness and are made aware of NETs in the process). There are people regularly retweeting my stuff who do not have a personal interest in NETs and I am now regularly copied in on many tweets by those wishing to use my account as a vehicle for dissemination. In the last month, I tweeted 211 times on my personal account which led to over 138,000 views of my tweets. I was mentioned 109 times by other tweeters, 2012 people looked at my profile and I gained 30 new followers. My tweet “Ignore this post” remains the most tweeted article about NETs ever posted on twitter. Check it out – click here.

Daily Newsletter from my twitter feed (Nuzzel). There is so much on twitter that I could swamp the community Facebook site so I started a twitter newsletter via an app called Nuzzel which seeks out stuff I normally like. This has been a huge success from my point of view resulting in an increase in blog hits and to a wider population than just NETs. Click this link and sign up if you think this is something you’d be interested in receiving – you don’t need to have a twitter account to read, just sign up with an email.

WEGO. I continue to be featured by ‘external’ organisations such as WEGO and my PODCAST is reaching new audiences – click here. In March, I managed to get into a very well contested short list for an article about the use of Facebook for health communities in light of the recent bad press for the service. The recent awards will continue to showcase my work which has the effect of spreading Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to NEW audiences in addition to enriching my experience as a Patient Leader. WEGO is a fantastic organisation! They recently listed me as one of the top 5 bloggers to watch in 2018. This is great awareness and good feedback for my own efforts. Read more here. WEGO Health Awards 2018 – I also await the results of the WEGO Health Award Finals. Many thanks for all your votes which I noticed were over 1000 by the time the voting ended. The finalists will be announced on 4th September. Check out my WEGO Health profile here.

Social Media and Stats

Blog Milestone. At the end of August, I accelerated past 683,000 blog views! Thank you all so much ♥ Keep sharing! On track for one million in the latter half of 2019.

Facebook Milestone. Surpassed 6641 followers by the end of August but my projected numbers are down so far in 2018 (despite a 20% increase in blog hits). The Facebook page is now my biggest outlet for awareness and education so please recommend this page to anyone you think would be interested. There are buttons to share the page and invite others to ‘Like’ it.

Also check out my sister Facebook sites here (go to these pages and click on ‘Like’)

These are fallback sites to counter the Facebook algorithm whereby you may not see all my posts on the main site (click on the links to see the pages)

Instagram

I’m expanding into Instagram to see how that goes. I’ve amassed over 250 followers to date. Initially, I’ll just be posting pictures of things that inspire me, mostly scenic photos of places I’ve been or want to go! I really enjoy these pictures, I hope you do too. You can follow me here: Click here to go to my Instagram page

Community Statistics (the measurement of my efforts on your behalf)

Figures

Facebook: ~6641. This is a key outlet for my blog – pleaseencourage others to like my page (if you’d like to know how to use your Facebook to invite others to my page – let me know, I can provide you with a step by step approach).

Summary

An amazing amount of awareness and hopefully, support for others. However, I cannot do this without you guys liking, commenting and sharing! The likes give me motivation, the comments and private messages give me inspiration or at least a chance to explain further – and they also keep me humble. The sharing gives me a bigger platform. A bigger platform generates more awareness.

Summary for July

Personal News

Another unusual month, after a bizarre June. The chest infection has gone but still awaiting results of an x-ray to confirm. July was supposed to be partly holiday but that was cancelled due to illness. The chest infection caused a 4kg weight loss and only half of this has returned to date. I also got the results of my first ever Ga68 PET Scan and this resulted in an article below. No longer a boring stable patient but nothing that needs doing imminently. Many thanks to all the messages which continue to arrive both public and privately, I’m most grateful. I received my 100th Lanreotide earlier in the month and I’m still here following my 8 year ‘cancerversary’ on 26 July 2018. Many of you are still here too – thanks for the wonderful comments to this Facebook post – click here.

NET News

PRRT in UK took a step forward when both the Scottish Medicines Consortium and NICE approved the drug (Lu-177) for use in Scotland and England respectively. Wales and Northern Ireland will continue to access elsewhere in UK via an NHS inter-region funds transfer until facilities are in place. That said, currently there are no PRRT facilities in Scotland (that I know of) and very few in England. Watch this space.

Blog Site Activity in July

Due to the vagaries of Facebook inner workings, some of these articles created or updated in July 2018 may not have even shown on your timeline. So, ICYMI …….here’s a summary with links, includes updated blogs. You can actually sign up to receive my blog articles direct to your inbox when published – subscribe here.

I continue to receive a steady flow of private contacts, mainly from patients seeking information. I don’t have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer

Please also note that due to sheer numbers of requests, I cannot accept telephone or video calls on a one to one basis. Please just message me and I will respond – see “Send Message” button when you CLICK HERE. (also please ‘Like’ this page if you have not already done so). On a personal note, please do not send me friend requests on my personal Facebook page, I get so many and want to keep this little area of ‘sanity’ free of NET stuff. I have so many other sites you can contact me on – all inside the newsletter. The number of non-patients contacting me for other reasons (mainly to help with something) continues to grow and this is producing some great publicity and awareness.

Ronny Allan’s Group

As the number of people contacting me has increased so much, it’s becoming very difficult to answer all questions myself. I’ve therefore set up a chat room here (I’m not the only one who can answer questions!). This is not like many forums, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss without many of the other distractions that can be found on forums and is moderated accordingly. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people. It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat was held on 28 Feb about the problems NET patients can have with being unable to produce sufficient digestive enzymes and the treatment to correct this issue PERT (Creon etc).

Join the chat group by clicking here(please answer the simple questions so you can be processed quicker). As at 30 July 2018, there were almost 1400 people in the group. I might cap at 2000 to maintain the integrity of the site.

New Audiences for NET Cancer

I said it was my aim to find new audiences for NETs rather than just share stuff within our own community. Sharing memes and animal pictures between patients is not my scene – I want to extend awareness much wider than that to ensure we move away from being a niche condition that no-one has heard of. I’m doing this all the time, although it may not always be apparent.

Engagements and Invites

I’m working on an invite to attend a pharma event in October at the guest of a major pharma company. I will update you when I’m allowed to release details.

In July, I continued a dialogue in a patient app development coordinated by NET Patient Foundation. That said, I missed the meeting due to illness. I’m on the project team and happy to help if I can. I always react positively to requests for help from INCA’s national NET affiliates, providing I have the bandwidth available to support.

I’ve accepted an appointment to the Strategic Advisory Board on MultiMed Inc the owner of Cancer Knowledge Network based in Canada who have featured my articles in the past (https://cancerkn.com/) – They also publishes a magazine called Current Oncology which is Medline listed. This is not a NET site but my inclusion will no doubt raise the profile for us. Read more here.

Some of you will remember the invite to Berlin for a ‘Patients included’ event, This was not a NET Cancer event but I was invited due to my wider healthcare advocate work. That was a tough gig but great experience. There’s a summary file here and I have been invited back next year and my involvement is still being worked out.

Article features

Cure Magazine. I’ve been accepted as a ‘Cure Today’ contributor which means my articles will get a wider distribution than they do now. Cure Magazine has a readership of 1 million. Click hereto read more. In October, I was featured in Cure Magazine twice. I have been so busy in 2017 but I have plans to increase my presence there in 2018:

“Cancer isn’t all about me”“Poker Face or Cancer Card”

Twitter. I’m ‘extremely’ active on twitter and I find a lot of research stuff there, in addition to new audiences. I also use it to support other conditions and it’s mostly returned (i.e. others help with NET awareness and are made aware of NETs in the process). There are people regularly retweeting my stuff who do not have a personal interest in NETs and I am now regularly copied in on many tweets by those wishing to use my account as a vehicle for dissemination. In the last month, I tweeted 179 times on my personal account which led to over 123,000 views. I was mentioned 101 times by other tweeters, 1909 people looked at my profile and I gained 39 new followers. My tweet “Ignore this post” remains the most tweeted article about NETs ever posted on twitter. Check it out – click here.

Daily Newsletter from my twitter feed (Nuzzel). There is so much on twitter that I could swamp the community Facebook site so I started a twitter newsletter via an app called Nuzzel which seeks out stuff I normally like. This has been a huge success from my point of view resulting in an increase in blog hits and to a wider population than just NETs. Click this link and sign up if you think this is something you’d be interested in receiving – you don’t need to have a twitter account to read, just sign up with an email.

WEGO. I continue to be featured by ‘external’ organisations such as WEGO and my PODCAST is reaching new audiences – click here. In March, I managed to get into a very well contested short list for an article about the use of Facebook for health communities in light of the recent bad press for the service. The recent awards will continue to showcase my work which has the effect of spreading Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to NEW audiences in addition to enriching my experience as a Patient Leader. WEGO is a fantastic organisation! They recently listed me as one of the top 5 bloggers to watch in 2018. This is great awareness and good feedback for my own efforts. Read more here. Also note the 2018 voting is now open. If you would like to vote for one of my five nominations, please see here for details – click here.

Social Media and Stats

Blog Milestone. At the end of July, I accelerated past 640,000 blog views! Thank you all so much ♥ Keep sharing! On track for one million in the latter half of 2019.

Facebook Milestone. Surpassed 6430 followers by the end of July but my projected numbers are down so far in 2018 (despite a 20% increase in blog hits). The Facebook page is now my biggest outlet for awareness and education so please recommend this page to anyone you think would be interested. There are buttons to share the page and invite others to ‘Like’ it.

Also check out my sister Facebook sites here (go to these pages and click on ‘Like’)

These are fallback sites to counter the Facebook algorithm whereby you may not see all my posts on the main site (click on the links to see the pages)

Instagram

I’m expanding into Instagram to see how that goes. I’ve amassed over 250 followers to date. Initially, I’ll just be posting pictures of things that inspire me, mostly scenic photos of places I’ve been or want to go! I really enjoy these pictures, I hope you do too. You can follow me here: Click here to go to my Instagram page

Community Statistics (the measurement of my efforts on your behalf)

Figures

Facebook: ~6427. This is a key outlet for my blog – pleaseencourage others to like my page(if you’d like to know how to use your Facebook to invite others to my page – let me know, I can provide you with a step by step approach).

Most blog views in one month: 35,148 in May 2018. Why the spike? See above.

Summary

An amazing amount of awareness and hopefully, support for others. However, I cannot do this without you guys liking, commenting and sharing! The likes give me motivation, the comments and private messages give me inspiration or at least a chance to explain further – and they also keep me humble. The sharing gives me a bigger platform. A bigger platform generates more awareness.

Summary for June

For the first time in 3 years, I didn’t write any new articles in a single month (other than the monthly newsletter). This was due to a prolonged chest infection from which I’m still recovering. I’m so much better now (thankfully) but I suspect recovery has been slightly hampered by the recent UK heatwave. I managed a relaxing short break on the south coast of England to make up for my cancelled 3 week road trip to Scotland My weight remains below 10 stone, the lightest I have been for over 30 years. For me, weight loss is a red flag, although this occurrence wasn’t sufficient for me to start waving one. I will get the results of my Ga68 PET scan on 11 July (please note this is unconnected to my bad chest infection). Many thanks to all the messages received both public and privately, I’m most grateful for the tonic.

Better News

External Recognition. I have been nominated for 5 awards, one or two with multiple nominators. Thanks so much to the named and anonymous nominators – read more here (the 5th nomination is being processed by WEGO so might not be showing yet). If you would like to nominate me for further awards (twitter, etc), see here how to do this. I’m also absolutely thrilled to be in the Top 5 patient leader blogs to watch in 2018 as listed by WEGO Health. I told you I would take Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to new audiences and I remain focused on that mission. According to WEGO Health, my blog is armed with facts, personal experience, and compassion. I never have time to assess what I’m doing so it’s useful feedback.

Blog Statistics. Despite a lack of new posts in June, I still managed to accumulate over 25,000 views on my blog site. In summary, my blog views have accelerated in the past 3 months. Many thanks This is recognition of organic growth caused by new activities, new contacts, wider use of social media outlets and an increased demand for the type of material I produce.

Blog Site Activity in June

Due to the vagaries of Facebook inner workings, some of these articles created or updated in Jun 2018 may not have even shown on your timeline. So, ICYMI …….here’s a summary with links, includes updated blogs. You can actually sign up to receive my blog articles direct to your inbox when published – subscribe here.

I continue to receive a steady flow of private contacts, mainly from patients seeking information. I don’t have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer

Please also note that due to sheer numbers of requests, I cannot accept telephone or video calls on a one to one basis. Please just message me and I will respond – see “Send Message” button when you CLICK HERE. (also please ‘Like’ this page if you have not already done so). On a personal note, please do not send me friend requests on my personal Facebook page, I get so many and want to keep this little area of ‘sanity’ free of NET stuff. I have so many other sites you can contact me on – all inside the newsletter.

The number of non-patients contacting me for other reasons (mainly to help with something) continues to grow and this is producing some great publicity and awareness.

As the number of people contacting me has increased so much, it’s becoming very difficult to answer all questions myself. I’ve therefore set up a chat room here (I’m not the only one who can answer questions!). This is not like many forums, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss without many of the other distractions that can be found on forums and is moderated accordingly. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people. It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat was held on 28 Feb about the problems NET patients can have with being unable to produce sufficient digestive enzymes and the treatment to correct this issue PERT (Creon etc).

Join the chat group by clicking here (please answer the simple questions so I can process quicker). As at 2 July 2018, there were almost 1237 people in the group. I might cap at 2000.

New Audiences for NET Cancer

I said it was my aim to find new audiences for NETs rather than just share stuff within our own community. Sharing memes and animal pictures between patients is not my scene – I want to extend awareness much wider than that to ensure we move away from being a niche condition that no-one has heard of. I’m doing this all the time, although it may not always be apparent.

Engagements and Invites

I’m working on an invite to attend a pharma event in October at the guest of a major pharma company. I will update you when I’m allowed to release details.

In July, I will continue a dialogue in a patient app development coordinated by NET Patient Foundation. I’m on the project team and happy to help if I can. I always react positively to requests for help from INCA’s national NET affiliates, providing I have the bandwidth available to support.

I’ve accepted an appointment to the Strategic Advisory Board on MultiMed Inc the owner of Cancer Knowledge Network based in Canada who have featured my articles in the past (https://cancerkn.com/) – They also publishes a magazine called Current Oncology which is Medline listed. This is not a NET site but my inclusion will no doubt raise the profile for us. Read more here

Article features

Cure Magazine. I’ve been accepted as a ‘Cure Today’ contributor which means my articles will get a wider distribution than they do now. Cure Magazine has a readership of 1 million. Click hereto read more. In October, I was featured in Cure Magazine twice. I have been so busy in 2017 but I have plans to increase my presence there in 2018:

“Cancer isn’t all about me”“Poker Face or Cancer Card”

Twitter. I’m ‘extremely’ active on twitter and I find a lot of research stuff there, in addition to new audiences. I also use it to support other conditions and it’s mostly returned (i.e. others help with NET awareness and are made aware of NETs in the process). There are people regularly retweeting my stuff who do not have a personal interest in NETs and I am now regularly copied in on many tweets by those wishing to use my account as a vehicle for dissemination. In the last month, I tweeted 124 times on my personal account which led to over 88,000 views. I was mentioned 80 times by other tweeters, 1689 people looked at my profile and I gained 39 new followers. My tweet “Ignore this post” remains the most tweeted article about NETs ever posted on twitter. Check it out – click here.

Daily Newsletter from my twitter feed (Nuzzel). There is so much on twitter that I could swamp the community Facebook site so I started a twitter newsletter via an app called Nuzzel which seeks out stuff I normally like. This has been a huge success from my point of view resulting in an increase in blog hits and to a wider population than just NETs. Click this link and sign up if you think this is something you’d be interested in receiving – you don’t need to have a twitter account to read, just sign up with an email.

WEGO. I continue to be featured by ‘external’ organisations such as WEGO and my PODCAST is reaching new audiences – click here. In March, I managed to get into a very well contested short list for an article about the use of Facebook for health communities in light of the recent bad press for the service. The recent awards will continue to showcase my work which has the effect of spreading Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to NEW audiences in addition to enriching my experience as a Patient Leader. WEGO is a fantastic organisation! They recently listed me as one of the top 5 bloggers to watch in 2018. This is great awareness and good feedback for my own efforts. Read more here. Also note the 2018 awards are now open. If you would like to nominate me for an award, ask me how.

Social Media and Stats

Blog Milestone. At the end of June, I accelerated past 618,000 blog views! Thank you all so much ♥ Keep sharing! On track for one million in the latter half of 2019.

Facebook Milestone. Surpassed 6300 followers by the end of June but my projected numbers are down so far in 2018 (despite a 20% increase in blog hits). The Facebook page is now my biggest outlet for awareness and education so please recommend this page to anyone you think would be interested. There are buttons to share the page and invite others to ‘Like’ it.

Also check out my sister Facebook sites here (go to these pages and click on ‘Like’)

These are fallback sites to counter the Facebook algorithm whereby you may not see all my posts on the main site (click on the links to see the pages)

Instagram

I’m expanding into Instagram to see how that goes. I’ve amassed over 250 followers to date. Initially, I’ll just be posting pictures of things that inspire me, mostly scenic photos of places I’ve been or want to go! I really enjoy these pictures, I hope you do too. You can follow me here: Click here to go to my Instagram page

Community Statistics (the measurement of my efforts on your behalf)

Figures

Facebook – 6307. This is a key outlet for my blog – pleaseencourage others to like my page(if you’d like to know how to use your Facebook to invite others to my page – let me know, I can provide you with a step by step approach).

Most blog views in one month: 35,148 in May 2018. Why the spike? See above.

Summary

An amazing amount of awareness and hopefully, support for others. However, I cannot do this without you guys liking, commenting and sharing! The likes give me motivation, the comments and private messages give me inspiration or at least a chance to explain further – and they also keep me humble. The sharing gives me a bigger platform. A bigger platform generates more awareness.

Summary for May

Different type of intro to my newsletter as it’s late due to unexpected illness. In some ways, what happened in May is possibly connected. I had quite a bit of work to do for a ‘Patients Included’ event in May in Berlin. I managed to meet the deadlines and admit I was slightly out of my comfort zone. That said, it was a success and I managed an amazing amount of new contacts and awareness for Neuroendocrine Cancer. I arrived back exhausted and turned my attention to another two things – a patient presentation to the inaugural UK Dietitian Group study day followed by a holiday to Wales. The study day was done on the way to my holiday, was very successful and I enjoyed it. My holiday was also very enjoyable despite the travelling to and from the area. The weather in UK has been mostly hot and muggy!

However, the day following my return from holiday, I sensed my chest tightening and this led to general fatigue, malaise, wheezing. coughing and (unusual for me) nausea and a single bout of sickness. Getting out of bed on Friday 1st June proved difficult (thus why this newsletter was not complete and not sent out). One thing led to another and on Monday 4th June, I finally sought medical help (first lesson, that took too long to instigate). Don’t let your poker face take over. Armed with antibiotics and steroids, I set about repairing myself. For good measure I also got a chest x-ray and some blood tests (tbc). Just as well I was still strong enough to go to London for my very first Ga68 PET scanon Tuesday although my wife had to come with me given my fragile state. I accept I took a risk here. I’m still recovering as this newsletter goes out.

Better News

External Recognition. I’m absolutely thrilled to be in the Top 5 patient leader blogs to watch in 2018 as listed by WEGO Health. I told you I would take Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to new audiences and I remain focused on that mission. According to WEGO Health, my blog is armed with facts, personal experience, and compassion. I never have time to assess what I’m doing so it’s useful feedback. And thanks also to NET Patient ‘Michael’ for his comment on last year’s nomination which has been used here. Read more here.

Blog Statistics. Despite a lack of new posts due to the above mentioned external activities, May 2018 was still a record-breaking month (after April’s new high) with more than 30,000 views for the third time in three months. In summary, my blog views have accelerated in the past 3 months. Many thanks This is recognition of organic growth caused by new activities, new contacts, wider use of social media outlets and an increased demand for the type of material I produce.

WEGO Health Awards. I received my first nomination for the 2018 awards – a return to ‘Best in Show: Community’, an award I won in 2016 – very exciting. If you would like to nominate me for further awards (blog, Facebook, twitter, etc), see here how to do this.

Blog Site Activity in May

Due to the vagaries of Facebook inner workings, some of these articles created or updated in May 2018 may not have even shown on your timeline. So, ICYMI …….here’s a summary with links, includes updated blogs. You can actually sign up to receive my blog articles direct to your inbox when published – subscribe here. May 2018 was a record-breaking month with the biggest number of views in one month ever. ​

Despite a lack of posts due to external activities, …. May 2018 is now a record-breaking month (after April and May’s new highs) with more than 35,000 views (another 30k plus figure for the third time in three months). Here are the top 10 most read articles which contributed to May’s figures:

I continue to receive a steady flow of private contacts, mainly from patients seeking information. I don’t have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer

Please also note that due to sheer numbers of requests, I cannot accept telephone or video calls on a one to one basis. Please just message me and I will respond – see “Send Message” button when you CLICK HERE. (also please ‘Like’ this page if you have not already done so). On a personal note, please do not send me friend requests on my personal Facebook page, I get so many and want to keep this little area of ‘sanity’ free of NET stuff. I have so many other sites you can contact me on – all inside the newsletter.

The number of non-patients contacting me for other reasons (mainly to help with something) continues to grow and this is producing some great publicity and awareness.

As the number of people contacting me has increased so much, it’s becoming very difficult to answer all questions myself. I’ve therefore set up a chat room here (I’m not the only one who can answer questions!). This is not like many forums, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss without many of the other distractions that can be found on forums and is moderated accordingly. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people. It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat was held on 28 Feb about the problems NET patients can have with being unable to produce sufficient digestive enzymes and the treatment to correct this issue PERT (Creon etc).

Join the chat group by clicking here (please answer the simple questions so I can process quicker). As at 31 May 2018, there were almost 1100 people in the group.

New Audiences for NET Cancer

I said it was my aim to find new audiences for NETs rather than just share stuff within our own community. Sharing memes and animal pictures between patients is not my scene – I want to extend awareness much wider than that to ensure we move away from being a niche condition that no-one has heard of. I’m doing this all the time, although it may not always be apparent.

Engagements and Invites

I attended a medical conference in Berlin as a patient advocate and speaker. This was not a NET conference so is very exciting for me both as a patient activist and speaker. I contributed to 3 separate activities:

My uninvited guest: perspective on chronic disease in young and old – read more here

I made a lot of new friends who are all now aware of our type of cancer. I’m hoping for further involvement in future events.

I presented a patient experience story in May to a newly established NET Dietitians group in UK – coordinated by the wonderful Tara Whyand. A wonderful initiative to tackle an unmet need for patients in UK. There’s a lot more to come from this initiative.

In May, I continued a dialogue in a patient app development coordinated by NET Patient Foundation. I’m on the project team and happy to help if I can. I always react positively to requests for help from INCA’s national NET affiliates, providing I have the bandwidth available to support.

I’ve accepted an appointment to the Strategic Advisory Board on MultiMed Inc the owner of Cancer Knowledge Network based in Canada who have featured my articles in the past (https://cancerkn.com/) – They also publishes a magazine called Current Oncology which is Medline listed. This is not a NET site but my inclusion will no doubt raise the profile for us. Read more here

Article features

NET Research Foundation featured an article I wrote about the importance of clinical research, in particular how patients find out about clinical trials that might be of interest to them. Read more here:

Facebook has been in the news regarding the security of user’s data. I am pretty well up to date with security although determined hackers are always a risk. I take this threat seriously and my personal account is as protected as it can be. Any signs of suspicious activity on my blog, Facebook pages and group, or indeed any of my social media sites, is dealt with robustly in order to protect you and me. I managed to get a quote in the WEGO Health article about the issue. Check it out here. Please be careful sharing personal data including in Facebook closed groups.

Cure Magazine. I’ve been accepted as a ‘Cure Today’ contributor which means my articles will get a wider distribution than they do now. Cure Magazine has a readership of 1 million. Click hereto read more. In October, I was featured in Cure Magazine twice. I have been so busy in 2017 but I have plans to increase my presence there in 2018:

“Cancer isn’t all about me”“Poker Face or Cancer Card”

Twitter. I’m ‘extremely’ active on twitter and I find a lot of research stuff there, in addition to new audiences. I also use it to support other conditions and it’s mostly returned (i.e. others help with NET awareness and are made aware of NETs in the process). There are people regularly retweeting my stuff who do not have a personal interest in NETs and I am now regularly copied in on many tweets by those wishing to use my account as a vehicle for dissemination. In the last month, I tweeted 73 times on my personal account which led to over 62,000 views. I was mentioned 91 times by other tweeters, 2046 people looked at my profile and I gained 60 new followers. My tweet “Ignore this post” remains the most tweeted article about NETs ever posted on twitter. Check it out – click here.

Daily Newsletter from my twitter feed (Nuzzel). There is so much on twitter that I could swamp the community Facebook site so I started a twitter newsletter via an app called Nuzzel which seeks out stuff I normally like. This has been a huge success from my point of view resulting in an increase in blog hits and to a wider population than just NETs. Click this link and sign up if you think this is something you’d be interested in receiving – you don’t need to have a twitter account to read, just sign up with an email.

WEGO. I continue to be featured by ‘external’ organisations such as WEGO and my PODCAST is reaching new audiences – click here. In March, I managed to get into a very well contested short list for an article about the use of Facebook for health communities in light of the recent bad press for the service. The recent awards will continue to showcase my work which has the effect of spreading Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to NEW audiences in addition to enriching my experience as a Patient Leader. WEGO is a fantastic organisation! They recently listed me as one of the top 5 bloggers to watch in 2018. This is great awareness and good feedback for my own efforts. Read more here. Also note the 2018 awards are now open. If you would like to nominate me for an award, ask me how.

Social Media and Stats

Blog Milestone. At the end of May, I accelerated past 590,000 blog views! Thank you all so much ♥ Keep sharing! On track for one million by the end of 2019.

Facebook Milestone. Surpassed 6200 followers by the end of May but my projected numbers are down so far in 2018 (despite a 20% increase in blog hits). The Facebook page is now my biggest outlet for awareness and education so please recommend this page to anyone you think would be interested. There are buttons to share the page and invite others to ‘Like’ it.

Also check out my sister Facebook sites here (go to these pages and click on ‘Like’)

These are fallback sites to counter the Facebook algorithm whereby you may not see all my posts on the main site (click on the links to see the pages)

Instagram

I’m expanding into Instagram to see how that goes. I’ve amassed over 250 followers to date. Initially, I’ll just be posting pictures of things that inspire me, mostly scenic photos of places I’ve been or want to go! I really enjoy these pictures, I hope you do too. You can follow me here: Click here to go to my Instagram page

Community Statistics (the measurement of my efforts on your behalf)

Figures

Facebook – 6200. This is a key outlet for my blog – pleaseencourage others to like my page(if you’d like to know how to use your Facebook to invite others to my page – let me know, I can provide you with a step by step approach).

Most blog views in one month: 35,148 in May 2018. Why the spike? See above.

Summary

An amazing amount of awareness and hopefully, support for others. However, I cannot do this without you guys liking, commenting and sharing! The likes give me motivation, the comments and private messages give me inspiration or at least a chance to explain further – and they also keep me humble. The sharing gives me a bigger platform. A bigger platform generates more awareness.

Headlines

1. Patients Included. I’m a big believer that patients should be included in all aspects of healthcare and I can very much relate to any initiative that promotes this. I’m therefore pleased to have been listed as a Patients Included accredited site providing further EXTERNAL awareness opportunities – read about this here.

2. I’ve accepted an appointment to the Strategic Advisory Board on MultiMed Inc, the owner of Cancer Knowledge Network based in Canada who have featured my articles in the past (https://cancerkn.com/) – It also publishes a magazine called Current Oncology which is Medline listed. This is not a NET site but my inclusion will no doubt raise the profile for us. Read more here.

3. My blog site is 4 years old. When I set my blog up on 29 Apr 2014, I never imagined for one second it would be anything other than an obscure and niche site getting a couple of hits per day. I’m therefore really grateful to those who are still supporting me including my most recent followers. It’s your support that inspires me to write the posts and then offer them up as awareness messages or simply words to help patients. Happy 4th birthday to my blog site!

4. My Facebook site (NET Cancer Blog) tipped over 6000 likes – I’m sensing a slight slow down in Facebook growth against a backdrop of a 20% increase in blog hits – go figure! Thanks for your support on this page – if you know someone who might like this page, feel free to invite them or share this post. Many thanks

I caught this news in my social media NET

For patients in UK (England in particular), the long wait for routine access to PRRT could hopefully be coming to an end, despite it being approved in Europe (EU countries) since last year. The NICE meeting was held in April but to date there has been no release of information about what was discussed and what will happen next. There might be ‘commercial’ niceties and attendee confidentially involved and the NICE website simply states that a meeting was held – nothing more. Read more by clicking here.

The UK is launching a NET dietitian support initiative (DING – Dietitians Interested in NETs Group) and their first meeting will be held next month. The initiative is led by Tara Whyand and supported by the NET Patient Foundation. Access to “NET aware” dietitians is an unmet need in many places and I’m delighted to be attending to provide a patient story to support this excellent initiative. I have mentioned this unmet need many times in many posts and I’d like to thank Tara for moving the issue forward. Read more here.

Researchers are testing the drug Sapanisertib to see if it can halt the progression of pancreatic NETs (pNETs) which cannot be surgically removed, have not responded to other treatment, and have spread to other parts of the body. Read more here.

Blog Site Activity

Due to the vagaries of Facebook inner workings, some of these articles created or updated in Apr 2018 may not have even shown on your timeline. So, ICYMI …….here’s a summary with links, includes updated blogs. You can actually sign up to receive my blog articles direct to your inbox when published – subscribe here April 2018 was a record-breaking month with the biggest number of views in one month ever. ​

Despite a lack of posts due to external activities, BUT ….April 2018 is now a record-breaking month with more than 30,000 views for the first time. Here are the top 10 most read articles which contributed to April’s figures:

I continue to receive a steady flow of private contacts, mainly from patients seeking information. I don’t have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer

Please also note that due to sheer numbers of requests, I cannot accept telephone or video calls on a one to one basis. Please just message me and I will respond – see “Send Message” button when you CLICK HERE. (also please ‘Like’ this page if you have not already done so). On a personal note, please do not send me friend requests on my personal Facebook page, I get so many and want to keep this little area of ‘sanity’ free of NET stuff. I have so many other sites you can contact me on – all inside the newsletter.

The number of non-patients contacting me for other reasons (mainly to help with something) continues to grow and this is producing some great publicity and awareness.

As the number of people contacting me has increased so much, it’s becoming very difficult to answer all questions myself. I’ve therefore set up a chat room here (I’m not the only one who can answer questions!). This is not like many forums, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss without many of the other distractions that can be found on forums and is moderated accordingly. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people. It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat was held on 28 Feb about the problems NET patients can have with being unable to produce sufficient digestive enzymes and the treatment to correct this issue PERT (Creon etc)Join the chat group by clicking here (please answer the simple questions so I can process quicker). As at 30 Apr 2018, there were 791 people in the group.

New Audiences for NET Cancer

I said it was my aim to find new audiences for NETs rather than just share stuff within our own community. Sharing memes between patients is not my scene – I want to extend awareness much wider than that to ensure we move away from being a niche condition that no-one has heard of. I’m doing this all the time, although it may not always be apparent.

Engagements and Invites

I have been invited to join a medical conference in Berlin as a patient advocate. This is not a NET conference so is very exciting for me as a patient activist and speaker. I’ve been asked to contribute to 3 separate activities:

My uninvited guest: perspective on chronic disease in young and old – read more here

I’m getting ready to present a patient experience story in May to a newly established NET Dietitians group in UK – coordinated by the wonderful Tara Whyand. Very excited about this, a wonderful initiative to tackle an unmet need for patients.

In April, I attended a meeting coordinated by NET Patient Foundation about a patient app. Apparently I’m on the project team and happy to help if I can. I always react positively to requests for help from INCA’s national NET affiliates, providing I have the bandwidth available to support.

Facebook has been in the news regarding the security of user’s data. I am pretty well up to date with security although determined hackers are always a risk. I take this threat seriously and my personal account is as protected as it can be. Any signs of suspicious activity on my blog, Facebook pages and group, or indeed any of my social media sites, is dealt with robustly in order to protect you and me. I managed to get a quote in the WEGO Health article about the issue. Check it out here. Please be careful sharing personal data including in Facebook closed groups.

In Feb, my blog site was recommended to health professionals by Dr Jane Maher who is the Chief Medical Officer for Macmillan Cancer Support, one of the biggest Cancer Support organisations in the world. This was out of the blue but gratefully accepted! Dr Maher continues to cite this site in April for contributing to general cancer awareness and I’m thankful for that.

Article features.

NET Research Foundation featured an article I wrote about the importance of clinical research, in particular how patients find out about clinical trials that might be of interest to them. Read more here:

Cure Magazine. I’ve been accepted as a ‘Cure Today’ contributor which means my articles will get a wider distribution than they do now. Cure Magazine has a readership of 1 million. Click hereto read more. In October, I was featured in Cure Magazine twice. I have been so busy in 2017 but I have plans to increase my presence there in 2018:

“Cancer isn’t all about me”“Poker Face or Cancer Card”

Twitter. I’m ‘extremely’ active on twitter and I find a lot of research stuff there, in addition to new audiences. I also use it to support other conditions and it’s mostly returned (i.e. others help with NET awareness and are made aware of NETs in the process). There are people regularly retweeting my stuff who do not have a personal interest in NETs and I am now regularly copied in on many tweets by those wishing to use my account as a vehicle for dissemination. In the last month, I tweeted 113 times on my personal account which led to over 94,000 views. I was mentioned 91 times by other tweeters, 2208 people looked at my profile and I gained 35 new followers. My tweet “Ignore this post” remains the most tweeted article about NETs ever posted on twitter. Check it out – click here.

Daily Newsletter from my twitter feed (Nuzzel). There is so much on twitter that I could swamp the community Facebook site so I started a twitter newsletter via an app called Nuzzel which seeks out stuff I normally like. This has been a huge success from my point of view resulting in an increase in blog hits and to a wider population than just NETs. Click this link and sign up if you think this is something you’d be interested in receiving – you don’t need to have a twitter account to read, just sign up with an email.

WEGO. I continue to be featured by ‘external’ organisations such as WEGO and my PODCAST is reaching new audiences – click here. In March, I managed to get into a very well contested short list for an article about the use of Facebook for health communities in light of the recent bad press for the service. The recent awards will continue to showcase my work which has the effect of spreading Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to NEW audiences in addition to enriching my experience as a Patient Leader. WEGO is a fantastic organisation!

Social Media and Stats

Blog Milestone. At the end of April, I accelerated past 555,000 blog views! Thank you all so much ♥ Keep sharing! On track for one million by the end of 2019.

Facebook Milestone. Surpassed 6000 followers by the end of April but my projected numbers are down so far in 2018 (despite a 20% increase in blog hits). The Facebook page is now my biggest outlet for awareness and education so please recommend this page to anyone you think would be interested. There are buttons to share the page and invite others to ‘Like’ it.

Also check out my sister Facebook sites here (go to these pages and click on ‘Like’)

These are fallback sites to counter the Facebook algorithm whereby you may not see all my posts on the main site (click on the links to see the pages)

Instagram

I’m expanding into Instagram to see how that goes. I’ve amassed over 250 followers to date. Initially, I’ll just be posting pictures of things that inspire me, mostly scenic photos of places I’ve been or want to go! I really enjoy these pictures, I hope you do too. You can follow me here: Click here to go to my Instagram page

Community Statistics (the measurement of my efforts on your behalf)

Figures

Facebook – 6028. This is a key outlet for my blog – pleaseencourage others to like my page(if you’d like to know how to use your Facebook to invite others to my page – let me know, I can provide you with a step by step approach).

Most blog views in one month: 30,558 in April 2018. Why the spike? See above.

Summary

An amazing amount of awareness and hopefully, support for others. However, I cannot do this without you guys liking, commenting and sharing! The likes give me motivation, the comments and private messages give me inspiration or at least a chance to explain further – and they also keep me humble. The sharing gives me a bigger platform. A bigger platform generates more awareness.

Headline for the period of March 2018 is reaching a milestone of half a million blog views. Yay …… Read more here. Amazing that I clicked over the 500,000 mark in a taxi going from Barcelona airport to my hotel for ENETS 2018 where I’d been sponsored by INCA. Fortunately I had prepared the post earlier and was able to spread the news in a few clicks. I picked up some great information at this conference which I’m feeding into my articles so you get the best and latest thinking. Here’s a couple of pictures of me with famous NET specialists.

Dr James YaoDr Jonathan Strosberg

I caught this news in my social media NET

A website I helped design with a couple of other patients has won an award. The site, owned by Ipsen (of Lanreotide fame), on the 2018 Eye for Pharma most valuable patient initiative. Read more here.

For patients in UK (England in particular), the long wait for routine access to PRRT could hopefully be coming to an end, despite it being approved in Europe (EU countries) since last year. Dates are now in the diary for discussion and subsequent ‘announce by’ dates. Fingers crossed for some news in April or May. Read more by clicking here.

ITM announced that 11 trial sites are now open for recruitment to an expansion of PRRT using 177Lu-Edotreotide (Solucin®) – COMPETE Trial. – Read about it by clicking here. I met the trials team in Barcelona on 8 Mar, they are struggling to get sufficient numbers which is a great shame.

A survey by NET Patient Foundation and Royal Free Hospital London suggests there certain side effects of Lanreotide are more prevalent than the trial data. Read more here.

Blog Site Activity

Due to the vagaries of Facebook inner workings, some of these articles created or majorly updated in Mar 2018 may not have even shown on your timeline. So, ICYMI …….here’s a summary with links, includes updated blogs. You can actually sign up to receive my blog articles direct to your inbox when published – subscribe here March 2018 was a record-breaking month with the biggest number of views in one month ever. ​

Irrfan Khan, star of Slumdog Millionaire and Life of Pi, is diagnosed with Neuroendocrine Cancer – read morehere

Despite a lack of posts due to external activities and illness, March 2018 is now a record-breaking month with just under 30,000 views. Here are the top 10 most read articles which contributed to March’s figures:

I continue to receive a steady flow of private contacts, mainly from patients seeking information. I don’t have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer

Please also note that due to sheer numbers of requests, I cannot accept telephone or video calls on a one to one basis. Please just message me and I will respond – see “Send Message” button when you CLICK HERE. (also please ‘Like’ this page if you have not already done so). On a personal note, please do not send me friend requests on my personal Facebook page, I get so many and want to keep this little area of ‘sanity’ free of NET stuff. I have so many other sites you can contact me on – all inside the newsletter.

The number of non-patients contacting me for other reasons (mainly to help with something) continues to grow and this is producing some great publicity and awareness.

As the number of people contacting me has increased so much, I’ve set up a chat room here (I’m not the only one who can answer questions!). This is not a forum, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people. It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat was held on 28 Feb about the problems NET patients can have with being unable to produce sufficient digestive enzymes and the treatment to correct this issue PERT (Creon etc) Join the chat group by clicking here (please answer the simple questions so I can process quicker). As at 1 Apr 2018, there were 608 people in the group.

New Audiences for NET Cancer

From Day 1, I said it was my aim to find new audiences for NETs rather than just share stuff within our own community. I’m doing this although it may not always be apparent.

Facebook has been in the news regarding the security of user’s data. I am pretty well up to date with security although determined hackers are always a risk. I take this threat seriously and my personal account is as protected as it can be. Any signs of suspicious activity on my blog, Facebook pages and group, or indeed any of my social media sites, is dealt with robustly in order to protect you and me. I managed to get a quote in the WEGO Health article about the issue. Check it out here.

For example. my story was once again featured on World Cancer Day – click here. Please join my World Cancer Day calendar event to be reminded each year – click hereand select ‘Going’.

In Feb, my blog site was recommended to health professionals by Dr Jane Maher who is the Chief Medical Officer for Macmillan Cancer Support, one of the biggest Cancer Support organisations in the world. This was out of the blue but gratefully accepted!

Article features.

Cure Magazine. I’ve been accepted as a ‘Cure Today’ contributor which means my articles will get a wider distribution than they do now. Cure Magazine has a readership of 1 million. Click hereto read more. In October, I was featured in Cure Magazine twice. I have been so busy in 2017 but I have plans to increase my presence there in 2018:

“Cancer isn’t all about me”“Poker Face or Cancer Card”

Twitter. I’m ‘extremely’ active on twitter and I find a lot of research stuff there, in addition to new audiences. I also use it to support other conditions and it’s mostly returned (i.e. others help with NET awareness and are made aware of NETs in the process). There are people regularly retweeting my stuff who do not have a personal interest in NETs and I am now regularly copied in on many tweets by those wishing to use my account as a vehicle for dissemination. In the last month, I tweeted 134 times on my personal account which led to over 111,000 views. I was mentioned 113 times by other tweeters, 3154 people looked at my profile and I gained 35 new followers. My tweet “Ignore this post” remains the most tweeted article about NETs ever posted on twitter. Check it out – click here.

Daily Newsletter from my twitter feed (Nuzzel). There is so much on twitter that I could swamp the community Facebook site so I started a twitter newsletter via an app called Nuzzel which seeks out stuff I normally like. This has been a huge success from my point of view resulting in an increase in blog hits and to a wider population than just NETs. Click this link and sign up if you think this is something you’d be interested in receiving – you don’t need to have a twitter account to read, just sign up with an email.

WEGO. I continue to be featured by ‘external’ organisations such as WEGO and my PODCAST is reaching new audiences – click here. In March, I managed to get into a very well contested short list for an article about the use of Facebook for health communities in light of the recent bad press for the service. The recent awards will continue to showcase my work which has the effect of spreading Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to NEW audiences in addition to enriching my experience as a Patient Leader. WEGO is a fantastic organisation!

Engagements and Invites

Attended a meeting coordinated by NET Patient Foundation about a patient app. Apparently I’m on the project team and happy to help if I can. I always react positively to requests for help from INCA’s national NET affiliates, providing I have the bandwidth available to support.

I have been invited to join a medical conference in Berlin as a patient advocate. This is not a NET conference so is very exciting. I’ve been asked to contribute to doctor-patient communications and the fear factor of living with cancer (in addition to a patient story of course).

I’m getting ready to present a patient experience story in May to a newly established NET Dietitians group in UK – coordinated by the wonderful Tara Whyand. Very excited about this, a wonderful initiative to tackle an unmet need for patients.

Social Media and Stats

Blog Milestone. At the end of March, I accelerated past 525,000 blog views! Thank you all so much ♥ Keep sharing! On track for one million by the end of 2019.

Facebook Milestone. I have my eyes set on 6000 followers by the end of April, could be sooner with your direct involvement! The Facebook page is now my biggest outlet for awareness and education so please please please recommend this page to anyone you think would be interested. There are buttons to share the page and invite others to ‘Like’ it.

Also check out my sister Facebook sites here (go to these pages and click on ‘Like’)

These are fallback sites to counter the Facebook algorithm whereby you may not see all my posts on the main site (click on the links to see the pages)

Instagram

I’m expanding into Instagram to see how that goes. I’ve amassed over 250 followers to date. Initially, I’ll just be posting pictures of things that inspire me, mostly scenic photos of places I’ve been or want to go! I really enjoy these pictures, I hope you do too. You can follow me here: Click here to go to my Instagram page

Community Statistics (the measurement of my efforts on your behalf)

Figures

Facebook – 5909. This is a key outlet for my blog – pleaseencourage others to like my page(if you’d like to know how to use your Facebook to invite others to my page – let me know, I can provide you with a step by step approach).

Most blog views in one month: 29,678 in March 2018. Why the spike? See above.

Summary

An amazing amount of awareness and hopefully, support for others. However, I cannot do this without you guys liking, commenting and sharing! The likes give me motivation, the comments and private messages give me inspiration or at least a chance to explain further – and they also keep me humble. The sharing gives me a bigger platform. A bigger platform generates more awareness.

Another great start to the year in both NETs in the news and my social media activity. It’s been really cold where I am though!

I’m so busy with personal contacts, I decided to set up a chat room so that other people can help me answer some really difficult questions! This ‘chat rom’ is not designed to run like a traditional Facebook forum, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss without the usual distractions and dramas that people often encounter. And …. it’s about learning. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people (I already have a few of the latter). It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat was held on 28 Feb hosted by a world-renowned NET specialist dietitian – subject was the problems NET patients can have with being unable to produce sufficient digestive enzymes and the treatment to correct this issue PERT (Creon etc).

Join the chat group by clicking here or just search for this group in Facebook – “Neuroendocrine Cancer – Ronny Allan’s Group“. I’m not intending it to be a large group so I’ll be capping it around 1000 to take a few months ‘breather’ before deciding what to do. Please answer the simple questions so I can process quicker.

I caught this news in my social media NET

Whether to cut or not to cut (or watch and wait then cut if necessary) and the sequencing of treatments is a really difficult issue for NET specialists. I quite liked two video clips that came out last week and they cover this issue quite nicely including some interesting abdominal challenges in surgery:
a. Risk Stratification and Management of NETs – click here
b. Surgical Considerations for NETs – click here

For patients in UK (England in particular), the long wait for routine access to PRRT could hopefully be coming to an end (despite it being approved in Europe (EU countries) since last year). Dates are now in the diary for discussion and subsequent ‘announce by’ dates. Fingers crossed. Read more by clicking here.

ITM announced that 11 trial sites are now open for recruitment to an expansion of PRRT using 177Lu-Edotreotide (Solucin®) – COMPETE Trial. – Read about it by clicking here.

Blog Site Activity

Due to the vagaries of Facebook inner workings, some of these articles created or majorly updated in Feb 2018 may not have even shown on your timeline. So, ICYMI …….here’s a summary with links, includes updated blogs. You can actually sign up to receive my blog articles direct to your inbox when published – subscribe here

The Oncolytic Virus AdVince is removed from the freezer ready for the Neuroendocrine Cancer Trial

I continue to receive a steady flow of private contacts, mainly from patients seeking information. I don’t have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer

Please also note that due to sheer numbers of requests, I cannot accept telephone or video calls on a one to one basis. Please just message me and I will respond – see “Send Message” button when you CLICK HERE. (also please ‘Like’ this page if you have not already done so). On a personal note, please do not send me friend requests on my personal Facebook page, I get so many and want to keep this little area of ‘sanity’ free of NET stuff. I have so many other sites you can contact me on – all inside the newsletter.

The number of non-patients contacting me for other reasons (mainly to help with something) continues to grow and this is producing some great publicity and awareness.

As the number of people contacting me has increased so much, I’ve set up a chat room here (I’m not the only one who can answer questions!). This is not a forum, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people. It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat was held on 28 Feb about the problems NET patients can have with being unable to produce sufficient digestive enzymes and the treatment to correct this issue PERT (Creon etc) Join the chat group by clicking here (please answer the simple questions so I can process quicker)

New Audiences for NET Cancer

From Day 1, I said it was my aim to find new audiences for NETs rather than just share stuff within our own community. I’m doing this although it may not always be apparent.

For example. my story was once again featured on World Cancer Day – click here. Please join my World Cancer Day calendar event to be reminded each year – click hereand select ‘Going’.

In Feb, my blog site was recommended to health professionals by Dr Jane Maher who is the Chief Medical Officer for Macmillan Cancer Support, one of the biggest Cancer Support organisations in the world. This was out of the blue but gratefully accepted!

Article features.

Cure Magazine. I’ve been accepted as a ‘Cure Today’ contributor which means my articles will get a wider distribution than they do now. Cure Magazine has a readership of 1 million. Click hereto read more. In October, I was featured in Cure Magazine twice. I have been so busy in 2017 but I have plans to increase my presence there in 2018:

“Cancer isn’t all about me”“Poker Face or Cancer Card”

Twitter. I’m ‘extremely’ active on twitter and I find a lot of research stuff there, in addition to new audiences. I also use it to support other conditions and it’s mostly returned (i.e. others help with NET awareness and are made aware of NETs in the process). There are people regularly retweeting my stuff who do not have a personal interest in NETs. In the last month, I tweeted 148 times on my personal account which led to over 113,000 views. I was mentioned 74 times by other tweeters, 2500 people looked at my profile and I gained 32 new followers. My tweet “Ignore this post” remains the most tweeted article about NETs ever posted on twitter. Check it out – click here.

Daily Newsletter from my twitter feed (Nuzzel). There is so much on twitter that I could swamp the community Facebook site so I started a twitter newsletter via an app called Nuzzel which seeks out stuff I normally like. This has been a huge success from my point of view resulting in an increase in blog hits and to a wider population than just NETs. Click this link and sign up if you think this is something you’d be interested in receiving – you don’t need to have a twitter account to read, just sign up with an email.

WEGO. I continue to be featured by ‘external’ organisations such as WEGO and my PODCAST is reaching new audiences – click here. The recent awards will continue to showcase my work which has the effect of spreading Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness to NEW audiences in addition to enriching my experience as a Patient Leader. WEGO is a fantastic organisation!

Engagements and Invites

Attended a meeting coordinated by NET Patient Foundation about a patient app. Apparently I’m on the project team – happy to help.

I have been invited to join a medical conference in Berlin as a patient advocate. This is not a NET conference so is very exciting. I’ve been asked to contribute to doctor-patient communications and the fear factor of living with cancer (in addition to a patient story of course).

I’m attending ENETS 2018 in Barcelona. I’ll be bringing you the latest and relevant news on NETs

Social Media and Stats

Blog Milestone. At the end of February, I accelerated past 495,000 blog views! Thank you all so much ♥ Keep sharing! On track for half a million by March 9th.

Facebook Milestone. I have my eyes set on 6000 followers by the end of March, could be sooner with your direct involvement! The Facebook page is now my biggest outlet for awareness and education so please please please recommend this page to anyone you think would be interested. There are buttons to share the page and invite others to ‘Like’ it.

Also check out my sister Facebook sites here (go to these pages and click on ‘Like’)

These are fallback sites to counter the Facebook algorithm whereby you may not see all my posts on the main site (click on the links to see the pages)

Instagram

I’m expanding into Instagram to see how that goes. I’ve amassed over 250 followers to date. Initially, I’ll just be posting pictures of things that inspire me, mostly scenic photos of places I’ve been or want to go! I really enjoy these pictures, I hope you do too. You can follow me here: Click here to go to my Instagram page

Community Statistics (the measurement of my efforts on your behalf)

Figures

Facebook – 5807. This is a key outlet for my blog – pleaseencourage others to like my page(if you’d like to know how to use your Facebook to invite others to my page – let me know, I can provide you with a step by step approach).

Other Activity

An amazing amount of awareness and hopefully, support for others. However, I cannot do this without you guys liking, commenting and sharing! The likes give me motivation, the comments and private messages give me inspiration or at least a chance to explain further – and they also keep me humble. The sharing gives me a bigger platform. A bigger platform generates more awareness.

A great start to the year in both NETs in the news and my social media activity. Of course the headline is the US FDA approvalof Lutathera (Lu-177) – i.e. PRRT

I caught this news in my social media NET

FDA finally approves PRRT in USA. Long awaited and has caused much excitement on all forms of social media. I’m very pleased for my USA friends but we mustn’t forget it’s also required in so many other places. Help me populate locations in my live article on PRRT click here.

NET Epidemiology continues to be discussed and (yet) another well known NET expert confirms my 2 year old article saying that the disease can no longer be considered rare. I suspect more dominoes will follow. Click here for the evidence.

MIDATECH Pharma announced intention to carry out human trials of Q-Octreotide – check out my article covering this potential new drug. Click here

Blog Site Activity

Due to the vagaries of Facebook inner workings, some of these articles created or majorly updated in Jan 2018 may not have even shown on your timeline. So, ICYMI …….here’s a summary with links, includes updated blogs. You can actually sign up to receive my blog articles direct to your inbox when published – subscribe here.

I continue to receive a steady flow of private contacts, mainly from patients seeking information. I don’t have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer

Please also note that due to sheer numbers of requests, I cannot accept telephone or video calls on a one to one basis. Please just message me and I will respond – see “Send Message” button when you CLICK HERE. (also please ‘Like’ this page if you have not already done so).

The number of non-patients contacting me for other reasons (mainly to help with something) continues to grow and this is producing some great publicity and awareness.

As the number of people contacting me has increased so much, I’ve set up a chat room here (I’m not the only one who can answer questions!). This is not a forum, it’s a place to make people feel safe and to discuss. I welcome all types of NET, people from any country and I also welcome carers/caregivers and medical people. It’s also a place where I will bring in expertise to chat about various issues. The first online chat will be about PERT (Creon etc) – date to be confirmed by probably around end of Feb). Join by clicking here (please answer the 3 simple questions)

New Audiences for NET Cancer

From Day 1, I said it was my aim to find new audiences for NETs rather than just share stuff within our own community. I’m doing this although it may not always be apparent. For example. my story is featured on World Cancer Day – click here. Please join my World Cancer Day calendar event to be reminded each year – click hereand select ‘Going’.